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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929738">This Night Has Opened My Eyes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekdayworld/pseuds/weekdayworld'>weekdayworld</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dead Poets Society (1989)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Not Canon Compliant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:47:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,535</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929738</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekdayworld/pseuds/weekdayworld</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Neil gets a part in a play, Todd helps him rehearse and the moments between real life and rehearsal begin to blur.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Todd Anderson/Neil Perry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Act One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Todd’s eyes followed Neil’s sun-soaked figure as he strode across the lawn of Welton Academy. Todd was sitting as he usually did, his back pushed against the wall with one leg straight and the other bent to support the notebook he was writing in. </p><p>He had caught Neil out of the corner of his eye and had all but forgotten his homework as he watched the boy disappear behind the arches of Welton. He could tell his roommate was happy about something. Neil had a way of walking when he was, a hybrid between a skip and a stride. Todd doubted that any of the other boys knew this and smiled secretly to himself because he did. </p><p>The door opened and he turned his head to see a slightly breathless Neil. His roommate fell onto his bed, an action that was followed by a deep sigh. Todd angled his body to the boy. The lowering sun cast a long streak of light into the room, dividing it into two. </p><p>“I got the part,” Neil said as if he was asking Todd to confirm it. </p><p>“Oh,” Todd said, as his roommate sat up from his bed. </p><p>Neil’s eyes prompted him to continue.</p><p> “Oh,” Neil said, echoing Todd’s deadpan statement while arching his eyebrow, “’Excellent weather we’re having, don’t you think?’ ‘Do you have the time?’ ‘How’s your mother?’” Neil sarcastically retorted. </p><p>Todd knew that this outburst was not directed at him but the delicate situation that surrounded the word “acting.” It would do no good to voice what Neil already knew so he let his silence speak for him.</p><p>“You don’t think I can make it work, do you? Neil asked. In truth, Todd thought that if anybody could make it work, it would be Neil. </p><p>Todd had not forgotten how talented Neil was when it came to acting. He always seemed to know when to pause and when to speak a line in a way that left both him and whoever else happened to be watching breathless. Timing and tone were innate to Neil. Everything Neil did, he did naturally, the opposite of Todd in other words. </p><p>Todd, doing some acting of his own, turned toward his roommate. “I’ll help you make it work.” </p><p>Neil locked eyes with Todd and seemed to see something in them that had not been there before. A smile broke out across Neil’s face. The boy leapt from his position on the bed and found his footing on Todd’s window perch before he stood, inviting the boy to stand with him. </p><p>Todd did what he always did, which was whatever Neil asked him to do. The two boys were now shoulder to shoulder. “If thou avows to keep his word, thou shall take a leap of faith,” Neil sang. </p><p>There was nothing left to say, Todd jumped from the window onto the dark wooden floors of their room. </p><p>__</p><p>Life at Welton Academy carried on as it always did, with bells designating when students should move to their next class while participating in extracurriculars that were primarily meant to look good on one’s college application. However, beneath the daily drudgery was a secret developing. Todd shared something with Neil that none of the other boys did and this thrilled him in a way that nothing else could. Whatever consequences he could face blurred into the background. </p><p>As Todd exited the stuffy interior of Welton Academy out onto its courtyard, a frigid Vermont wind swept his hair up. He could see Neil in the distance, weaving in and out of the opposition on the soccer field. In spite of his height, Neil was exceptionally nimble. Todd found his seat near an oak tree, his back pressed against its ancient trunk. Its leaves had already begun to discolor into the vivid red that consumed the Vermont landscape in the autumn. </p><p>Todd tugged at the fleshy part of his hand as he waited for Neil to finish the match. A whistle blow later and the match was over. Not wanting to waste any more time, Neil dogged the pats on the back his teammates tried to bestow on him and jogged straight toward Todd. In characteristic style, Neil threw his back against the tree Todd sat at. Heat still radiated from the boy’s body and contrasted greatly with Todd’s cold skin, causing him to shiver involuntary. </p><p>Neil craned his head toward him. “Cold?” he asked. </p><p>Todd had to shake his head twice because Neil knew that the boy sitting beside him would not say he was cold even if he was. </p><p>Neil’s back relaxed against the tree. “Let’s go through it one more time.” A silent understanding existed between the two boys, Neil did not need to elaborate on what “it” meant. </p><p>The plan was that they would go to Headmaster Nolan’s office. Todd would say that he needed tutoring in Latin, which was not a complete lie, and considering that Neil has the highest grade in the class he was hoping he could tutor him. Of course, Neil is more than willing to help out a fellow classmate. He felt that no one should miss out on the beauty of Latin. However, they would need access to the library after curfew considering that Neil’s schedule was already full. And no, no one else could do it. </p><p>This was their plan and it worked. It helped that Neil was Neil, one of the most promising boys to pass through Welton Academy’s doors. It also helped that Todd was Todd, one of the most unpromising boys at Welton, at least to Nolan. All good lies, it is known, have some truth buried in them. It was true that Neil’s schedule was full. It was also true that they needed the library. However, they lied about what they needed it for. Rather than learn the language of the Romans they would learn the language of Shakespeare. </p><p>As the two boys made their way to the Welton library at night a sense of eeriness engulfed the abandoned halls. Their shadows bounded around them. Walking the halls after curfew filled the boys with the overwhelming sense of unbelonging that overtakes one when they encounter a familiar space at an unfamiliar time. Take, for example, the Welton library at night. Neil led the duo and walked straight ahead with a slight forward lean, as if he always had somewhere to be. Todd’s posture could be described as a kind of collapsing inward. </p><p>It was Neil who finally broke the echoes of their footsteps in a silenced whisper. “Thank you.” </p><p>The taller boy slowed his stride enough so as to be side by side with Todd. Todd shrugged in response, his involvement in whatever plan ensured Neil’s happiness was inevitable to him not a choice. Neil stopped and Todd walked a few more steps before noticing his absence. Even though the distance that separated them was small, Todd could just make out Neil’s silhouette in the oppressive darkness as he turned around. The boy seemed to emerge out of it like a vision, close enough now for Todd to study his face, which of course he did not. He opted for Neil’s shoes instead. </p><p>“I’ve never felt more alive.” Something in Neil’s voice made Todd look up. </p><p>
  <em>He had never felt more alive either.</em>
</p><p>The library and all its oaken desks looked realer in the dark. Todd remembered reading that at night our eyes desperately use what little light there is to form outlines of what’s around us. At times, he felt he experienced life in a similar way: in outlines. </p><p>Neil turned on one of the lamps on the desk and Todd instinctively eyed the floor as his eyes adjusted to the sudden burst of light. Neil talked as he began taking Latin textbooks out of his bag and positioning them on the desk, flipping to random chapters. </p><p>“Just a precaution,” he said as he caught Todd’s eye. </p><p>A look of comprehension crossed over Todd’s face. </p><p>“We have to make it at least appear that we’re invested in Latin” Neil clarified. </p><p>The taller boy said something in Latin before turning to face Todd, his hair framed by the warm light. </p><p>“That is what you will be translating tonight,” Neil said with a feigned seriousness that would fool anyone but Todd. </p><p>Out of his bag, Neil took out two scripts of <em>Romeo and Juliet</em> – his copy was already littered with annotations, some crossed out and others running into the words of the script. This play now belonged as much to Neil as it did to its original author. Todd, on the other hand, was already overwhelmed by the words that made up the script. </p><p>“We have to read all of this?” he said, the sound of uncertainty infiltrating his speech. </p><p>“Only the scenes that I-,” he corrected himself, “that Romeo is in.” “That means you’ll be whoever else is in the scene.”</p><p>“Obviously,” Todd said to himself. </p><p>__</p><p>Neil had one foot on a chair and the other foot on one of the many long desks that he had labored over while at Welton. Todd stared down at him, being that he was standing atop the desk. </p><p>Without looking at the script, Neil followed it, taking Todd’s hand in his while stepping up with his other foot thereby bringing Shakespeare’s two lovers face-to-face and alone with each other for the first time. </p><p>“My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand / To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss” Neil said, his voice emulating the elations of first love through each inflection. </p><p>Todd was still acutely aware of the warmth of Neil’s hand in his own when he looked down at the script.</p><p>“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, / Which mannerly devotion shows in-” Todd’s eyes absently trailed to the bottom of the page and landed on the stage direction “Kisses her”. Juliet’s words caught in Todd’s throat and he stared back up to Neil, breaking the momentum of the scene. </p><p>Todd opened his mouth in apology when the grandfather clock chimed, designating 11:00 PM and the end of their extended curfew. </p><p>Todd felt that the inanimate clock must have sensed his internal distress. Neil, however, was unaware. The boy jumped down from the desk. Todd’s eyes followed Neil as he walked around the library. </p><p>“When Romeo’s line ends, Juliet seamlessly completes it while following the rules of iambic pentameter and vice versa.” Neil had to catch his breath. “They literally finish each other’s sentences.” The brown-haired boy held the script close up to his face again. “In this scene alone, their fourteen lines form a sonnet.” This is how Neil spoke when he loved something: unfiltered and relentless. </p><p>Todd could follow the poetic conventions Neil was detailing thanks to Mr. Keating and his peculiar pedagogy. </p><p>“They’re soulmates,” Todd quietly said, voicing Neil’s unspoken conclusion. </p><p>Neil turned to face him, his cheeks red from exertion. He looked younger than he was in the frail light of the library. “They’re soulmates,” he affirmed.</p><p>The phrase, as it happens, was the last Latin translation of the night.</p><p>__</p><p>All eyes were transfixed on Mr. Keating as he read aloud from a well-worn novel. When he finished, there was a period of silence before he spoke again. </p><p>“This is a case of narrative verité, a moment when the writer is speaking to us outside the text. The story then is the medium in which narrative verité – what the novel is actually about – gets expressed. In this way, narrative verité is a politicized tool that early writers use to evade censorship laws while still condemning those same laws and the society that enacts them.”</p><p>Keating closed his eyes before reading again. “As he looked back upon man moving through History, he was haunted by a feeling of loss. So much had been surrendered! and to such little purpose!” </p><p>“-and to such little purpose!” he said again more somberly, emphasizing each word. </p><p>He gently closed the novel before meeting each pair of eyes in his classroom. “Wilde’s final suggestion is that you can tell more about the state of a society based on how it treats something beautiful and natural rather than how it treats the worse parts of itself.” </p><p>Todd had stopped taking notes a while ago. He wouldn’t need to write these words down to remember them, he couldn’t fathom forgetting them. He felt he had been given the words he did not know he was longing for – like the breath exchanged from one body to another during resuscitation. </p><p>He cast a side long glance at Neil who met Mr. Keating’s stare head-on, the boy’s glasses doing little to conceal how deep in thought he was. Neil turned to face him and his expression softened. </p><p>Todd had started the term sitting at the back of the class. Then, one day, Neil hailed him to sit next to him. In a compromise, Todd choose to sit behind him. He traced the outline of his shoulders many-a-days and observed how his muscles tensed when he raised his hand. It came down to this: Todd liked to observe Neil without having to worry about being observed in return. This went on for a month in all the classes they shared together until the seat behind Neil was unexpectedly filled one day. </p><p>Of course, Todd didn’t own the seat, but it was <em>his</em> seat. He eyes, out of habit, landed on what formerly was his seat, the desk in the back row and, as he intended, closest to the door. He could be the first to leave class that way. He moved to the back of the room slipping his messenger bag off his shoulder when Neil called his name.</p><p>Todd saw the open desk next to him in the front row and he hesitated. When he met Neil’s expression again he went over, convincing himself that once Mr. Keating arrived he would move to the back of the classroom. </p><p>Neil never stopped conversing with him though, not even when Mr. Keating walked in. With no chance of escape, Todd felt trapped in the front row. That was a few months ago and in the front row he had remained ever since. However, he no longer felt trapped, just slightly inconvenienced. </p><p>The bell sounded and all of Welton Academy’s student body poured forth into its halls. It was Friday and, for most, this meant two days of respite from the monotone lectures of the teaching staff, excluding Mr. Keating. </p><p>For Neil and Todd, the weekend meant a halt in their nightly library excursions. Because curfew was extended on weekends there was no way to confess Shakespearean love discreetly in a room full of students supervised by a rotation of teachers. </p><p>Fortunately, they were members of the Dead Poets Society and they had the cave. </p><p>The cave would have to wait until Saturday night however. There were some expectations that they could not escape from, namely Mr. Perry’s Friday night call to his son. </p><p>__</p><p>The two boys had abandoned their uniforms as soon as they could. Neil was attired in an emerald green woolen sweater with a checkered collared shirt underneath. The sweater seemed made for him, whereas Todd felt that his sweater engulfed his frame. </p><p>Neil was talking in hushed tones in one of the more secluded sections of Welton, the phone pressed to his ear. He looked utterly fatigued, he always did when his father was concerned. </p><p>Todd could not imagine what it would be like to have parents who wanted to talk to him, let alone ones who prearranged to do so. Todd’s parents always seemed to talk about him in the third-person, even when he was present. Students at Welton often had a hard time adjusting to being away from their parents but it felt like nothing had changed for Todd. </p><p>Todd didn’t know which was worse, oppressive expectations or none at all. </p><p>Neil put the handset back on the hook. He let out a deep sigh before he composed himself. </p><p>“Shall we my fair Juliet?” he said, his usual hint of playfulness returning to his voice. </p><p>“I will follow thou anywhere.” A smile spread across Neil’s face. </p><p>The way to the cave was precarious in the night, their breath colliding with the frigid air in a white cloud. The two boys could not risk turning their flashlights on until they distanced themselves from Welton. There movements were further impeded by the fog that clung to the landscape all around them. Trees seemed to arise out of the layer of fog and became visible only when the boys were upon them. </p><p>Through various warnings uttered in the dark and coat grabbing to prevent a hard descent to the ground, they found themselves across from each other in the shelter of the cave. </p><p>Wax drippings from previous visits lingered on the cave walls and Todd felt compelled to speak. </p><p>“I’m sorry” he said, eyes downturned as he scuffed his shoes on the opposing rock face. With only two members of the normally seven occupying the cave his voice echoed, closing in on itself. </p><p>“For what?” Neil said.</p><p>“Your father.” </p><p>Neil gripped the script in his hand harder. “I don’t know what makes it worse, the fact that I can’t tell him or that I already know what his response would be if I did.” </p><p>“The latter. It makes you feel like you are at fault for telling him in the first place, a sword breaking skin before you even have time to lift yours in defense.”</p><p>Neil smiled. “Is that from one of your poems?” </p><p>Todd looked up with wide eyes. “How do you know about those?”</p><p>Neil looked a little hurt that Todd had asked the question in the first place. </p><p>“How could I not know about them? Your fingers always have ink smudges on them and every free moment you have is spent bent in half over a piece of a paper.”</p><p>Neil’s eyes held his own. Todd was not used to being the center of attention. He didn’t even think he could be and now that he was a feeling of uneasiness overcame him. Another thought entered his mind, compounding his unease: Neil had been observing him. </p><p>“You’re gifted,” Neil said, shattering Todd’s line of thought, “Mr. Keating knows it too.”</p><p>Todd broke away from the boy’s warm brown eyes, bringing his hand to his neck in an unconscious ploy to draw the same eyes away from his face. </p><p>“Thanks, but- well, it won’t lead anywhere.” </p><p>“It won’t lead anywhere or you’re scared it won’t lead anywhere?” Neil gave voice to something that had previously only known the innermost recesses of Todd’s mind. </p><p>Todd felt incredibly tired. He was not used to having these conversations let alone having someone to have them with. </p><p>“Don’t tell me what I am or am not scared off, you can’t even stand up to your father,” Todd bit out. </p><p>He instantly regretted saying this. However, Neil was laughing. </p><p>“Poetry has helped you find your voice I see,” the boy said, his hair falling in his face. </p><p>In spite of his best efforts, Todd couldn’t help but laugh with him. </p><p>“You forget,” Neil said, “I <em>am</em> standing up to my father, with your help”</p><p>Their laughter died out. </p><p>It was Neil who spoke at last. “You tell your father you’re going to become a writer and I’ll tell mine I want to be an actor.”</p><p>The silence took on an entirely new presence. This was the kind of silence that followed words you always wished to hear, not words you wish you never said. </p><p>The tension of the moment before left Todd’s shoulders. “I doubt mine would care either way.” </p><p>“Perfect, you can write for me and I can perform your work.” </p><p>Neil leapt up from his seat. He grabbed his flashlight and held it up to Todd’s mouth like a mock microphone. “Tell me Todd Anderson with your recent success with Neil Perry what will you do now? The people are dying to know,” Neil said in strangely authentic reporter voice that suggested he had practiced it before. </p><p>Hearing his name conjoined with Neil’s in the same sentence thrilled Todd to the point of personal embarrassment. </p><p>Under the veil of darkness with Neil pelting him with questions and looking at him in anticipation, Todd felt that the future Neil envisioned for the both of them was not just possible, but already in motion. </p><p>More importantly, Todd wanted it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Act Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Neil had been awake for a while. <em>Had he always stayed in bed this long after he had awakened or was this a recent development beginning when Todd became his roommate.</em> He scrunched his neck back so as to look at the sole window in their room. Overnight frost lined the window’s edges, its branching paths reminded him of the photos of neurons he had seen in his textbook. If his father had his way, Neil would get to see them firsthand one day and every day after. </p><p>He relaxed his neck and turned onto his side. Todd was still asleep; their alarm would not go off for another ten minutes. His eyes moved down the outline of Todd’s face, lingering at his upturned eyelashes until falling upon his lips. Neil could hear the barely audible breath that emanated from his mouth with each rise and fall of his chest. What struck him the most was how unguarded Todd looked in his sleep. The boy’s painful self-consciousness could not follow him everywhere and Neil was working on frightening it away permanently in the daylight hours. </p><p>Neil filled in the boy’s cerulean blue eyes from memory and their deep intensity. How many times had he caught himself starring into them for too long. It mattered less when he did so as Romeo, unabashed starring is a lover’s privilege after all. </p><p>Neil stole one last look at the sleeping boy across from when the alarm went off.<br/>
__</p><p>He remembered the day Todd and he met for the first time. Voices obscured and overlapped one another in the main hall, lending to the chaotic nature of Welton Academy on move-in day. Many a boy uttered a greeting as Neil passed by. He only knew the first names of a few of them but everyone knew who Neil was. New Perry was a household name in the insulated community of families who sent their sons to Welton. “You should be more like Neil,” parents would tell their children. This constant comparison to Neil did not, as one might expect it to, breed ill feeling for the boy in his peers. Neil was the <em>magnum opus</em> of Welton Academy. Of course, Mr. Nolan credited Welton’s rigorous academic and personal standards for the boy’s development but everyone knew that Neil was what he was: an exceptional student that comes around once in a lifetime. More than this, Neil Perry was an even more exceptional person, charismatic and infallibly kind. Students of Welton did not need their parents telling them to be like Neil, they already wanted to be like him. </p><p>How much of this Neil knew was a mystery for the boy never let self-importance influence his movements through life. It was in moving past these various families who silently prayed that their sons would become like him that he met the Anderson’s. </p><p>When the older man imposed himself on Neil, he searched his mind for anyone in his year with the last name Anderson to no avail. </p><p>“My son just got his room assignment, looks like you two are going to be roommates,” he said, “I hope you rub off on him, his brother sure didn’t”</p><p>There it was: Jeffrey Anderson. Neil had never personally met the Welton alumni but, like himself, Jeffrey Anderson’s name preceded him. Some thought Neil had usurped the boy while at Welton but they wouldn't know for sure until he went out in the world and made a name for himself and, as planned, Welton Academy. </p><p>The man dictated Jeffrey Anderson’s time at Welton to Neil as Mrs. Anderson listened with pride. </p><p>Unable to get a word in any other way, Neil interrupted him, “And your other sons’ name?”</p><p>Mr. Anderson looked as if Neil had just personally asked him what the code was to his family safe.</p><p>“My roommate,” Neil clarified, noting the blank look on Mr. Anderson’s face. </p><p>This snapped the man back to the overcrowded hallway. “Todd,” he said as if the name was distasteful to him. </p><p>Neil smiled at having gotten the detail from Mr. Anderson. </p><p>“He just transferred to Welton. He had to get his grades up unlike-”</p><p>Sensing the introductory notes of one of her husband’s lectures, Mrs. Anderson ended the lecture before it could begin. </p><p>“He should be just out in the courtyard, perhaps you can show him your dorm room,” she said.</p><p>Neil knew when he was being excused. “A pleasure to meet the both of,” he said and took his leave after another round of perfunctory handshaking. </p><p>Each footstep brought Neil closer to the large paneled doors that led to the main courtyard. Before he could push out into the courtyard, a group of boys arranged in a semicircle called his name, causing him to look back in polite acknowledgment. When he turned back he saw, through a panel of glass, Todd Anderson. The boy was positioned under the far corner of Welton’s arched walkway so as not to disturb people going in or coming out of the main building. He realized he had been starring for a while and was thankful that the boy’s back was to him. </p><p>He adjusted his uniform and opened the door to meet his roommate. </p><p>“Hey,” he said, a smile on his face, “I hear we’re going to be roommates.”</p><p>Following the sound of this new voice from behind him, Todd came face to face with a stranger. He might have been the only boy at Welton that day who didn’t know who Neil was before he introduced himself. </p><p>“I’m Neil Perry,” he said, extending his hand out for the boy facing him to shake. The light now shone on half of Todd’s profile.</p><p> Neil was struck. </p><p>The dark hair color he thought he saw through the door turned out to be light brown, its ends almost golden in the daylight. Neil’s eyes drifted down to Todd’s own and his mouth fell slightly agape. Their color seemed to shift in the light and gave Neil peaks of the unspoken world behind them. Neil knew that he had not met this boy before because if he had he knew that he wouldn’t be able to forget him so easily. </p><p>“Todd Anderson,” the other boy said softly.  </p><p>Neil became vaguely aware that he was still shaking Todd’s hand and released it. He pressed the fingertips of his right hand against each other, remembering the warmth of the hand they had just released.</p><p>Neil suddenly became hyper-aware of the silence that followed the exchange of their names. </p><p>“Why’d you leave Balincrest?” he said. Neil already knew the answer to this question thanks to Mr. Anderson but he wanted Todd to speak for Todd, not his father. He knew what it was like to be spoken for. </p><p>“My brother went here,” he returned. </p><p>He paused for a moment. “Oh, so you’re <em>that</em> Anderson,” he said. That’s what he said but he wanted to say so much more. </p><p>As the two boys joined the mass of students making their way to the dorms Neil smiled his first sincere smile of the day. </p><p>The entire introduction took ten seconds but Neil felt that it would change the course of his entire future.<br/>
__</p><p>Neil was staring at the chemical structure of <em>Atropa belladonna</em> which might look, to someone not in Honors Chemistry, like a hexagonal shape connected by singular lines. </p><p>“<em>Atropa</em> was used as an anesthetic in the Middle Ages,” his teacher continued in the same monotone voice. </p><p>His relationship with <em>Atropa belladonna</em>was literary rather than chemical as it had long been thought that Juliet’s consumption of toxic <em>Atropa</em> berries led to the final tragedy of <em>Romeo and Juliet</em> and brought about reconciliation when it was too late. </p><p>When the bell rang, he filed behind a line of boys who collected their graded labs on their way out the door. When Neil grabbed his lab, Welton’s resident chemistry teacher looked upon him with pride.</p><p>“Excellent work as always Mr. Perry,” he said.</p><p>He knew he had no reason to complain. In fact, others had told him so. Life had afforded him with every opportunity and yet he had no known what it meant to live. He was beginning to find out however. </p><p>The brown-haired boy now lingered outside his own dorm room, only a sliver of the door open. He could hear Todd on the inside, reading under his breath. His roommate lay at an angle on his bed, his legs outstretched but slightly bent so as to support the book he was reading. He noted how at ease he was. Not wanting to reveal that he had been silently standing by the door for the last few minutes Neil stepped back silently and then exploded into the room. </p><p>Todd abruptly closed his book when Neil entered the room like he had been caught in the act.  </p><p>With his back to his roommate, Neil spoke. “What are you reading?”</p><p>“Nothing,” Todd said. </p><p>He had noticed a while ago that Todd liked to give answers that ended conversations rather than kept them going and he wasn’t going to let him get away with it like everyone else did. </p><p>Having set his messenger bag down on his desk, he crossed the room crouching on the floor directly beside the bed. He used his finger to prop the cover of the book up so it was legible. </p><p>“<em>John Keats: The Complete Poems</em>” he read aloud. </p><p>“Mr. Keating gave me his copy,” Todd said. </p><p>Neil's hands fell to the bedside. </p><p>“Will you read me one?” </p><p>Todd’s eyes moved to meet his own. Neil had gotten a lot better at reading them since their first meaning but there were still times he could only catch peaks of the world behind them. </p><p>“Please,” he said.</p><p>Todd gave a slight nod of his head and Neil, with one seamless motion, leaped onto the bed landing next to the boy who was going to read a poem for him. </p><p>Their shoulders were just touching. </p><p>Todd cast a side-long glance at Neil before he found his place in the book. </p><p>“This living hand, now warm and capable<br/>
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold<br/>
And in the icy silence of the tomb,<br/>
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights</p><p>While Todd was focusing on the poem, Neil was focusing on the way Todd’s eyes moved from side to side and onto the next line with steady surety. </p><p>That thou wish thine own heart dry of blood<br/>
So in my veins red life might stream again, </p><p>Neil listened for the line breaks when the boy would take shallow breaths so as not to disrupt the flow of the poem.</p><p>And thou be conscience-calm’d-see here it is-</p><p>Todd paused.</p><p>I hold it towards you.”</p><p>Neither of them spoke, the last line of the poem filled the silence for them. </p><p>“Keats knew, at the very moment of writing this, that his ‘warm’ hand would soon drained of life unable to grasp anything or anyone,” Todd said. </p><p>Neil remained behind the boy’s shoulder just out of view. </p><p>“To prove he exists, mostly to himself, he writes ‘see here it is’ and extends his hand out to us. He is beckoning us through the page to grasp it and give it life again,” Todd concluded, his voice growing fainter at the end. </p><p>Neil felt like he had held his hand out all his life waiting for someone to grasp it and Todd Anderson was the one who finally did. The final line echoed in his mind again and again picking up momentum until it entered the material world. </p><p>“I hold it towards you,” Neil whispered under his breath. His hand slowly enveloped Todd’s own and their fingers intertwined. His thumb began to follow the rise and fall of the boy’s knuckles and a smile overtook his face. </p><p>Side by side in a room enclosed on all sides by Vermont landscape and vigilant eyes Neil and Todd were, if but for a moment, conscious of what it meant to exist and to relish in the fact that they existed at the same time.<br/>
__</p><p>“If I asked you to describe in detail the person next to you without looking, do you think you could?” Mr. Keating asked.</p><p>Neil knew he could. </p><p>From the back of the classroom came the confident voice of Charlie Dalton, “Yeah, unsightly.” </p><p>Knox, who sat beside his fellow Dead Poets Society member, shot the boy a delayed glare. </p><p>“Mr. Dalton, I see your infamous selective hearing is at work again,” Mr. Keating’s comment elicited small eruptions of laughter from the classroom, “but I said to describe them <em>in detail.</em>” </p><p>“Poetry lets us stare. It takes the mundane, the familiar, and the every day and reintroduces it to us in a new way. You have to internalize the details of something, down to its very essence, to the point where you can see it in your memory, before you can put it down in words that present it in a new light to others and maybe even to yourselves.”</p><p>A mischievous smile spread across the Welton teacher’s face. </p><p>“Your assignment is to defamiliarize the familiar. Pick anything or anyone, come to know it, and then write like it’s the first time you saw it.”</p><p>The boys had gotten used to Mr. Keating’s unconventional assignments but a couple could still be seen to roll their eyes in exasperation.  </p><p>Neil had just begun to put his messenger bag around his shoulder when Mr. Keating spoke.</p><p>“Neil, a word please,” he said. </p><p>Todd immediately met Neil’s eyes, both of them thinking the same thing. <em>He knows about the play.</em></p><p>Neil gave him a weak smile that meant <em>It’ll be fine, I’ll make it fine</em> and the other boy had no other choice but to leave. For the first time, Neil doubted his own silent claim. Todd paused by the classroom door, casting one look back.<br/>
__</p><p>Tears welled in his eyes as he left Mr. Keating in his classroom. </p><p>He had promised him that he would tell his father about the play, about his love for acting and the feeling that welled up inside him when he was onstage; about his expectations that weighed on him every single day of his life; about how he knew that they were not as rich as other Welton families; about how he knew he was counting on him; and about how, at the end of the day, he still wanted to make him proud. </p><p>Neil knew he would tell his father none of this. He knew what his father would say and he knew that he would have to leave the play. He also knew that it was not the play he cared about the most, but the person who was helping him rehearse for it. He cared about Todd Anderson. He could imagine putting off his acting debut but he could not do that and give up those nights with Todd too. He could not be asked to sacrifice so much to preserve someone else’s idea of him. He would not. </p><p>
  <em>I’m trapped.</em>
</p><p>A bitter laugh escaped his mouth and disappeared in the empty hallway.<br/>
__</p><p>“And will you?” Todd questioned. </p><p>“Will I what?” Neil said.</p><p>“Tell your father.”</p><p>“I’ll tell him the night before the play,” he said.</p><p>Todd opened his mouth in reply but Neil wasn’t going to let his father invade this space, their space. </p><p>“There’ll be no play unless I can get these lines right,” he interjected before Todd could question him further.</p><p>For the next two hours, they went over the scenes Neil felt needed more work. Slowly but surely, Neil began to inhabit a world of two as everyone and everything else faded into the background. </p><p>Neil broke off midway through the line he was reading. </p><p>“I sound insincere,” he said exasperated, “this is when they learn their soulmates.”</p><p>“I think we should perform it slower than we have been,” Todd said after some thought. “If I came face to face with my soulmate for the first time, I wouldn’t be in a rush to leave.”</p><p>Neil couldn’t believe he didn’t see it before. Actors almost always barreled through the scene in question, generating laughs from the audience rather than deep sighs. It needed to be performed slowly. </p><p>Neil went back to his starting position upstage or what his approximation of upstage was in the Welton library. </p><p>“My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand / To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss,” Neil recited from memory.</p><p>“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, / Which mannerly devotion shows in this;,” Todd followed moving closer. “For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, / And palm to palm-,” Todd said as he held his palm up to Neil’s, “is holy palmers’ kiss.”</p><p>“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?” Neil said.</p><p>“Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.”</p><p>“O, then, dear saint, lets lips do what hands do;,” Neil said as he took a knee, “They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”</p><p>“Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake,” Todd continued, each syllable clear and sharp. </p><p>Neil arose from his kneeling position and began to close the distance between him and Todd. “Then move not,-“ he said as he stood inches away from Todd’s face, “while my prayer’s effect I take.”</p><p>Neil leaned in and with all the assuredly of a Shakespearean lover he kissed him. He pulled away. “Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged,” he said never breaking eye contact. </p><p>“Then have my lips the sin that they have took,” Todd said, his voice floating. </p><p>“Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!” Neil paused. “Give me my sin again.”</p><p>This time both boys closed the distance between them. Their lips brushed and Neil’s hand cupped Todd's cheek. When they finally parted, they joined the long lineage of people who inhabited Shakespeare’s famous ill-fated lovers who knew that they loved each other when they first met and that love could be uncomplicated, could just be. </p><p>A smile played across their faces and Todd never finished his line.<br/>
__</p><p>Neil had been awake for a while, in fact, he had never gone to sleep. He lay on his side. The moonlight streaming through the sole window in their room cast a kaleidoscope of light and shadow on Todd’s face across from him. Neil paid attention to the gentle incline of his eyelashes and the cerulean blue eyes open below them. Neil Perry was unabashedly starring. </p><p>It would be many hours before their alarm would go off this time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>In writing this, I realized how much I love writing that has differing POVs. It's like we know character A is in love with character B and character B is in love with character A but the characters themselves don't. I, for one, am here for it. </p><p>Also, for a multimedia experience, I made a Spotify playlist for what it sounds like to write about Neil Perry and Todd Anderson falling in love with each other: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1E0vAgCyMwJdjUh7w1r1kN?si=gFizD0mgQbG1w2ln80_B7A</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>One a scale of one to “I am going to rewrite the ending of <em>Dead Poets Society</em> nearly thirty-two years after its release” how much did Todd Anderson hunched up in the snow, unable to breathe, with tears streaming down his face after learning of Neil’s death hurt you?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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